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Living without central heating this winter?

I have a storage heater that I've not turned on since moving in three years ago. It's a warm building with double glazing and not very drafty window frames though, and I'm young and physically healthy and work outdoors all winter anyway. There's a little fan heater on the bathroom wall that I'll turn on if I'm up really early on the very coldest days, it cuts out after about ten seconds but that's enough to take the chill off the air.

More difficult if you live somewhere colder and damper or are more vulnerable due to health conditions/age/etc obvs.
 
You mean you have central heating available but want to live without using it? No, that won't work. You'll be paying a standing charge anyway, and if you decide to be strict and never use the central heating at all, you'll need some sort of heating occasionally, like a fan heater or whatever. That'll cost more.

Minimising heating use is a good idea. Like keeping your bedroom radiator on minimum. Avoiding using central heating at all when you already have it, are paying charges for it, and don't have any alternatives other than expensive fan heaters, is daft.

Living with no heating at all is at best unpleasant and at worst fatal. I spent part of my childhood in a home with no heating except for a gas heater in one room downstairs, and it had severe health consequences (no heating in our climate = damp = respiratory problems), and was generally shit - waking up with icicles on your hair is not actually a good thing.
 
David Clapson said:
Good point. Especially as it would benefit all 20 people in the building
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Your local council is best place to start. Some of these schemes come and go - either time or budget limited. if there isn't one at the moment, there's a chance there will be another one along some time.

And if the building is as crappy as you say, then there may be some enforcement action council can take against landlord (I'm very out of touch with these things) - some councils do have an officer / team who try to stand up for private tenants.
 
I didn’t live anywhere that had central heating until I was about 30. It took some getting used to, I preferred a single heat source you could sit right next to and heating more than the room you’re in was weird.

I’m still not clear on whether it’s better to have all the radiators on low, or to turn them all off apart from the room you’re spending the most time in.

I hate being cold. Grew up with single glazing & a gas fire in the living room, nothing in the rest of the house. I think possibly I hate those little fan heaters more than I hate being cold though.
 
scifisam said:
You mean you have central heating available but want to live without using it? No, that won't work. You'll be paying a standing charge anyway, and if you decide to be strict and never use the central heating at all, you'll need some sort of heating occasionally, like a fan heater or whatever. That'll cost more.

Minimising heating use is a good idea. Like keeping your bedroom radiator on minimum. Avoiding using central heating at all when you already have it, are paying charges for it, and don't have any alternatives other than expensive fan heaters, is daft.

Living with no heating at all is at best unpleasant and at worst fatal. I spent part of my childhood in a home with no heating except for a gas heater in one room downstairs, and it had severe health consequences (no heating in our climate = damp = respiratory problems), and was generally shit - waking up with icicles on your hair is not actually a good thing.
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I doubt my flat can get to freezing point because it's on the third floor and gets a fair bit of heat from the other flats. We shall see. It's an experiment. As you say, turning the heating right down may be the best solution.

I also want to find out the effect of covering indoor surfaces with foil. I've got a stash of coffee bags which need a new use. They're foil-lined plastic, and not recyled in most places.
 
David Clapson said:
I doubt my flat can get to freezing point because it's on the third floor and gets a fair bit of heat from the other flats. We shall see. It's an experiment. As you say, turning the heating right down may be the best solution.

I also want to find out the effect of covering indoor surfaces with foil. I've got a stash of coffee bags which need a new use. They're foil-lined plastic, and not recyled in most places.
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What is putting foil on things going to do?
 
I didn't have central heating until we moved into our current house in 2007.

I used to use convector heaters with a timer, an electric blanket and a wall-mounted fan heater in the bathroom, plus a gas fire in the living room. I don't like to be cold but only found it really difficult on a few days of the year.

Luckily I could afford the bills as I had a cheap rent and was working. I really feel for those who don't have/do either.
 
I've heard of the idea of putting foil / something shiny behind radiators on (the inside of) outside walls (might think about it if i don't move house before winter)
 
I couldn't do it. It gets ruthlessly cold in my flat in the winter, my hands virtually freeze and my teeth chatter. Single paned sash windows in a flat in a 200 odd year old Georgian house. It's practically like being outside at times. The electric heaters keep it warm but they're virtually on all the time because the heat just disappears out the window in minutes. I'm very fortunate to be avoiding it all this winter by being in much warmer climes.
 
WouldBe said:
It would need insulation behind it or the foil would just conduct the heat through to the cold walls. :(
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I envisage a sort of foil/plastic curtain with a small air gap between the curtain and the wall and/or ceiling. The air gap would be insulation. So it's a kind of double glazing for walls and ceilings, with the reflective action of the foil as an added feature
 
Doctor Carrot said:
I couldn't do it. It gets ruthlessly cold in my flat in the winter, my hands virtually freeze and my teeth chatter. Single paned sash windows in a flat in a 200 odd year old Georgian house. It's practically like being outside at times. The electric heaters keep it warm but they're virtually on all the time because the heat just disappears out the window in minutes. I'm very fortunate to be avoiding it all this winter by being in much warmer climes.
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If you ever spend another winter there, I recommend the glazing film discussed upthread. Depending on how the window frame is recessed into the wall, you might need to fix a simple frame to the wall, similar to a simple poster frame. Very cheap and easy to do, and you can remove it in spring and put it back on the wall in autumn
 
David Clapson said:
I envisage a sort of foil/plastic curtain with a small air gap between the curtain and the wall and/or ceiling. The air gap would be insulation. So it's a kind of double glazing for walls and ceilings, with the reflective action of the foil as an added feature
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If you bring any lady or men friends back they're going to think they're in American Psycho. Warn them first yeah?
 
Can the roof space not be insulated?

I've used Sempatap insulating wallpaper which is really good, my place used to be bitter in winter. I've got no central heating to speak of because I only really use the Rayburn to cook on, but adding a bit more wood afterwards takes the chill off upstairs with the heat coming up the stairs.

I've used acrylic sheets for secondary glazing attached with magnetic strips round the outside. Works really well and visually you hardly notice they're there.
 
Who owns the building? Or manages it? Push hard for them to insulate the loft asap!! But if the building owners wont then I would insulate it without asking permission. Just crack on and do it with a mate. Youd have it done in a day. Put 400mm of insulation up there if possible. You can get less irritating and horrible materials nowadays. Or just a good respirator mask.

If you do that your whole building will be immeasurably warmer and you might be able to manage without central heating. Otherwise... I doubt it.

It makes me mad they dont make these rich fuckers insulate buildings and so much energy is being wasted and so many health issues caused all for the lack of £100 in insulation per house...
 
There are Eco grants for insulation. I tried down here to top up loft insulation but there are no installers in Cornwall. :mad: Local councils sometimes help, too.
 
Yes, get your loft insulated asap. My 1930s/40s apartment is below a flat roof, which used to be asphalt, but when they replaced it about 10 years ago they installed a green roof, which involved extra thick layer of insulation, plus a layer of sedum plants, and my flat is noticeably warmer in winter.
 
I didn't have CH till 2008 or so when we only had a fireplace in one room and a calor heater I used to shunt about to heat the offspring's bedrooms. I bloody hate being cold and am dreading it a bit but I do have access to wood and could just yank the gasfire out (although the council would not be well pleased, I don't fucking care). I have fucking massive windows - entire walls of them so it's always bloody freezing or boiling. Lots of jumpers, I guess. I used to think if it was a choice between heat or food, I would go for heat but while I could live without heating, I can't quite see me managing without dinner. I have hoarded a lot of old velvet fabric over the years so I could do massive, double thick curtains and decamp into one room.
 
Riklet said:
Who owns the building? Or manages it? Push hard for them to insulate the loft asap!! But if the building owners wont then I would insulate it without asking permission. Just crack on and do it with a mate. Youd have it done in a day. Put 400mm of insulation up there if possible. You can get less irritating and horrible materials nowadays. Or just a good respirator mask.

If you do that your whole building will be immeasurably warmer and you might be able to manage without central heating. Otherwise... I doubt it.

It makes me mad they dont make these rich fuckers insulate buildings and so much energy is being wasted and so many health issues caused all for the lack of £100 in insulation per house...
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My landlord is beyond incompetent. She shares the freehold with a few others, and sometimes she exercises her right to get the common parts maintained. She lives in Paris and never inspects the work or meets the contractors. She gets 3 quotes, chooses the cheapest one, and that's it, she's done her duty. Then she falls out with the contractor, argues about the bill and they disappear, leaving all kinds of horrors.

When I moved in the kitchen wall had a pair of 1 ft square holes in it. The kitchen had been fitted over the holes. You can't see the holes from any vantage points outside the building. It took me years to work out where the draught was coming from. I never suspected enormous holes in the outside wall. No wonder there's a giant crack in the building and all the flats below are damp. By then I'd discovered that getting her to fix things would only make them worse, so I just filled half the fucking kitchen with expanding foam.

We had all the repointing and window frames done. I sent her photos of the worst bits, but she fell out with the contractor before they got to the very worst bit, the north facing walls at the top, i.e. my flat. Some of my window frames are now mostly filler, the rest still have that nasty dark green paint which nobody's used since the '50s. The mortar between the inner and outer brick courses has chunks missing. The bathroom's sash window has to be opened very gingerly in case the glass falls out. I could go on. She even managed to pay the £30k bill to a push payment fraudster who hacked her email. After that she gave me notice and put the flat on the market on some shitty self-service property site where she wrote the blurb, describing the flat (2 beds on Rushcroft Road) as a penthouse, worth £925k. That didn't work, so we agreed a small rent increase in exchange for me continuing to live here.
 
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David Clapson said:
Reflect heat?
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It doesn't work. It will just make you look like a crazy person with tinfoil on their windows.
campanula said:
I didn't have CH till 2008 or so when we only had a fireplace in one room and a calor heater I used to shunt about to heat the offspring's bedrooms. I bloody hate being cold and am dreading it a bit but I do have access to wood and could just yank the gasfire out (although the council would not be well pleased, I don't fucking care). I have fucking massive windows - entire walls of them so it's always bloody freezing or boiling. Lots of jumpers, I guess. I used to think if it was a choice between heat or food, I would go for heat but while I could live without heating, I can't quite see me managing without dinner. I have hoarded a lot of old velvet fabric over the years so I could do massive, double thick curtains and decamp into one room.
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I know (and you know I know!) social housing can be shit, but how come they didn't put heating in till 2008?
 
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